nding-line indicated a southwesterly drift. However anxious one
is to take things philosophically, one can't help feeling a little
depressed. I try to find solace in a book; absorb myself in the
learning of the Indians--their happy faith in transcendental powers,
in the supernatural faculties of the soul, and in a future life. Oh,
if one could only get hold of a little supernatural power now, and
oblige the winds always to blow from the south!

"I went on deck this evening in rather a gloomy frame of mind,
but was nailed to the spot the moment I got outside. There is the
supernatural for you--the northern lights flashing in matchless power
and beauty over the sky in all the colors of the rainbow! Seldom
or never have I seen the colors so brilliant. The prevailing one at
first was yellow, but that gradually flickered over into green, and
then a sparkling ruby-red began to show at the bottom of the rays on
the under side of the arch, soon spreading over the whole arch. And
now from the far-away western horizon a fiery serpent writhed itself
up over the sky, shining brighter and brighter as it came. It split
into three, all brilliantly glittering. Then the colors changed. The
serpent to the south turned almost ruby-red, with spots of yellow;
the one in the middle, yellow; and the one to the north, greenish
white. Sheaves of rays swept along the side of the serpents, driven
through the ether-like waves before a storm-wind. They sway backward
and forward, now strong, now fainter again. The serpents reached and
passed the zenith. Though I was thinly dressed and shivering with
cold, I could not tear myself away till the spectacle was over, and
only a faintly glowing fiery serpent near the western horizon showed
where it had begun. When I came on deck later the masses of light had
passed northward and spread themselves in incomplete arches over the
northern sky. If one wants to read mystic meanings into the phenomena
of nature, here, surely, is the opportunity.

"The observation this afternoon showed us to be in 78 deg. 38' 42''
north latitude. This is anything but rapid progress.

"Wednesday, November 29th. Another dog has been bitten to death
to-day--'Fox,' a handsome, powerful animal. He was found lying dead
and stiff on the ice at our stern this evening when they went to
bring the dogs in, 'Suggen' performing her usual duty of watching the
body. They are wretches, these dogs. But now I have given orders that
some one mus